


Outlived

by Archerdiana



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Immortality, Mother's Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archerdiana/pseuds/Archerdiana
Summary: Even daiyoukai weren't meant to live forever, but Inu no Kimi keeps outliving everyone around her.No, dear Touga, she thinks. What would you know about being dead?A series following Sesshomaru's mother and how death keeps avoiding her, told in 100 word drabbles.ON HIATUS.





	1. Arch 1: Antropophiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, a saga for the challenge no-one issued, on the pair no-one cares about. Bad time management ensues.

The Inu no Taisho has no trouble shattering her castle's defenses, breaking through her lines, and then transforming to his humanoid form to step into the throne room. Even as a man he is big and rugged. "They say you are the strongest inu youkai. Join me." He demands in a booming voice.

Inu no Kimi looks into his rough face. His markings are wild slashes under eyebrows wilder still. Somewhere in between there is a pair of golden eyes without a shred of self doubt or fear.

"I'm the most beautiful as well." Is all she said as acceptance.


	2. Chapter 2

Her parents were renowned as deadly pair of silver dogs, and they always attacked together. Once, still a pup, Inu no Kimi pointed out the pairs of komainu the humans had adopted as protectors of their shrines.

“We learn from one another.” Her mother said. “Do we not take _ human _form?” They were too willing to learn from humans, it appeared. They kidnapped a stonemason to build their impregnable castle in the sky.

When they died defending it, Inu no Kimi resolved to bury the man alive in a wall. _ Now he’ll do his job better _. But it hadn’t sufficed.


	3. Chapter 3

Courtship for inuyoukai means fighting. She combats the hulking mass of Inu no Taisho by night, runs from him by day. He has a moon’s turn to defeat her, or any who challenge his claim.

Her Inu form is beautiful, but imperfect. Her front paws are weak from all the time she spends walking on two legs.

  
The Taisho noticed, he must have. Everyone says his force is merely a distraction from the true danger -his cunning. She hid from him in a cave. In her small form, her human form, she licks her wounds.  _ What are you waiting for? _


	4. Chapter 4

Inu no Kimi spies him drinking water outside, as a man. For a second the Taisho is sweet to her eye, beautiful.

Then the fury overcomes her. She is on him in an instant, toxins dripping from her hands as she tries to scratch his eyes out. “Be done with it! Why won’t you just defeat me?” He pushes her hands away at all cost, clumsy on two feet. “Poison!” He breathes out.

So her ability is his shortcoming. “I won’t be beaten by a weakling!” She cracks her toxic whip over his face, blinding him, and makes her escape.


	5. Chapter 5

While Inu no Taisho’s eyes regenerate from the poison, Inu no Kimi is able to put distance between them, running for two days straight. The third time the sun sets she collapses, curling her tail around herself.

Not a hundred years before, she was a nomad. Now all she dreams about are silken sheets. The palace life has made her soft. For a second, Kimi wonders how her minions fare without her.

The wind carries his scent and he is still strong, always closer. Soon, she will have to kill him or be his.


	6. Chapter 6

All Inuyoukai come from the same place, a small country to the West. Her parents crossed the ocean on a silver cloud, before the earth was old.

Inu no Taisho had just yesterday erupted from the homeland, raising demon armies and leaving behind wastelands. Even the trees chattered about the taiyoukai capable of orchestrating battles. Nothing in the world could stop him, and when he had wrecked the continent, he crossed over too.

Inu no Kimi stands her ground, resolute not to run from him anymore. Besides, she thinks looking at the sea before her, there is nowhere left to go.


	7. Chapter 7

When the Taisho finally makes his appearance, he chooses to go in his human form -foolish, as she has the advantage. Kimi notices he has reshaped his armour and fang into something more resembling good taste.

She launches herself at him, not wasting a second, but he seems prepared for her poison now. His balance is better, but he’s still a brute. There’s a gloss over his eyes, a baring of the teeth she find insufferable. “Are you smiling?” She asks enraged.

“You will join me.” He proclaims, cocky, easily deflecting her attacks. The world turns red at his words.


	8. Chapter 8

He has her pinned below his body, wrists tucked under his heavy arm, but he hasn’t really harmed her. “Join me.” He demands for the hundredth time.

“Then defeat me properly, you brute! Uncultured, continental swine! You befouled my castle!” She screams, more enraged with every word that leaves her mouth. He seems surprised that she can speak, and speak so well -are youkai in the mainland so backward? Or is he not yet fluent in the language?

His eyes are squeezed shut in an effort to think. “Join me and we will conquer. We will build castles.” Kimi laughs.


	9. Chapter 9

The Inu no Taisho’s great cunning is nothing but a mix of curiosity and callowness. He doesn’t react to her ridicule. “I learnt from humans to fight battles. I need Inu no Kimi to fight wars.” He tries yet again over her guffaws.

He grabs her chin hard enough to break it, forcing her to look at him. Kimi falls silent. “I need Inu no Kimi to fight wars.” There is not a shred of fear in his eyes, ever. Tendrils of his wavy silver hair are brushing her face. He releases her.

“Well then.” She agrees. “Who are we fighting?”


	10. Chapter 10

The Taisho understands her question. He is tired of her mocking, and he answers in his gibberish language, but she gets the meaning.  _ Everyone and everything _ .

He looks up at the full moon, now high above them. The month is up, and he bends down to nuzzle her neck. “My name is Touga.” He confesses. Inu no Kimi shivers involuntarily when he bites down on her.

It’s foolish to hold each other like humans, to embrace like people, when they are dogs. But it will be their shared insanity, the reason and the secret of how they came together.


	11. Chapter 11

He never properly defeated her, Kimi knows. For all of Inu no Taisho’s strength, he was too preoccupied of killing her, and erasing her precious knowledge.

She’s the only one who knows the profane art of turning youkai into builders, warriors into guards. How to tame them like humans.

“You never properly defeated me, and now it is your fault.” She yells at him when she loses her first litter. Touga lets her claw at him, push him. “Forgive me,” he says stupidly. “Forgive me,” over and over. The tears on her face must be his as she hits him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love and abuse are not the same thing. This is not a depiction of a healthy relationship.


	12. Chapter 12

Turn blood into mortar and venom into silk -so her incantation goes. But the real secret for securing a youkai minion is a human word: tomorrow. Promises of riches and reward, if only they would devote themselves first to the silver dogs. Taming a demon ought to be harder than that.

The pair outdo one another in their devotion to their war plan, their battles. _ Maybe this is the real reason we are together _, Kimi tells herself.

  
Once in a while there are furtive glances, suppressed passions. But they are near immortal, and there will be time for that later.


	13. Chapter 13

“We have brought forth only death and destruction.” Touga admits to her one day. He lays a sword at her feet -a new fang, masterly crafted. “This shall be a sword for healing, to be wielded with compassion and love.”

Kimi looks at him. She has become more quiet lately. The only emotion she allows herself is playfulness- for this all must be a game if she has the world and nothing. “I haven’t heard of such a swordsman since I was a pup.”

“We’ll have a son.” Touga promises, pulling her to him. “A son with a pure heart.”


	14. Chapter 14

Kimi never tells a soul when she is with pup. What if she is caught delivering her fragile stillborn? She’d rather eat her young than have someone see their weakness. She cannot allow it.

But Touga must smell it on her everytime she returns defeated, exhausted. He knows better than to speak, but he holds her.

This night is different, however. There is no moon, no stars in the overcast skies. In the night, she produces a perfect little pup. She licks him clean; none of the blood is his. In the darkness Inu no Kimi listens to his strong heartbeat.


	15. Chapter 15

Inu no Taisho is there in a breath, too soon. _Were you spying on me?_ Kimi wonders. Her body curls around her pup, protecting him instinctively from the much larger dog demon.

Touga circles around them, merely guarding. Kimi can close her eyes at last, weary but relieved.

In the weak morning light she transforms to her humanoid shape, and the pup mimics her. She holds him close, amazed at how small he is this way. Touga approaches, unsure if she will let him. “His name is Sesshomaru,” she informs him. _And he is the end of my old life._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Sesshomaru means End of Life, not Killing Perfection or any of that noise.


	16. Chapter 16

The more Inu no Kimi looks at her pup's human form, the more she remembers. She _has_ seen a babe before, just as small.

She had gotten lost as a pup, scouting with her sister. Ravenous, she stumbled upon a birthing woman in a cave. There was blood, dry, and new, and drying between her legs. Something had gone awry while she bore the babe -it often did with human females. Their hips didn't work, couldn't withstand it.

She reeked of disease. But the fat babe in her arms didn't. "No!" She pleaded weakly when Kimi grabbed it.


	17. Chapter 17

That winter day, Kimi had laughed at the dying female. "He will die on any case." She reasoned. "A babe is too weak without its mother."

The woman tried to stand with non existing strength, and lost in a pitiful dance. "Then may your stronger children live." She rasped at last, barely audible over the babe's wailing.

Inu no Kimi makes her pup change back to his real form. She watches over him, day and night. _There is no danger_, she tells her frantic heartbeat. Sesshomaru will grow to be an ender of life. The others couldn't live, but _he_, he is stronger.


End file.
